Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter March 9, 2016

 Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
 March 9, 2016
 FreeWillAstrology.com

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DREAM AND SCHEME ABOUT YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE
with my 3-part EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2016.

My long-range, big-picture audio horoscopes for the coming months are still available -- for one more week.

Who do you want to become between now and January 2017? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? How can you exert your free will to create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?

To listen to these three-part, in-depth reports, go here:
RealAstrology.com.

Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." (Choose from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)

If you'd like a boost of inspiration to fuel you in your quest for beauty and truth and love and meaning, tune in to my meditations on your Big-Picture outlook.

Each of the three-part reports is seven to nine minutes long. The cost is $6 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.

P.S. You can also listen to a short-term Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.
 

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FURTHER MEDITATIONS ON YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE

I've gathered together all the Free Will Astrology horoscopes that address the far-reaching themes of your destiny in the coming months. Read a compendium of your written horoscopes for 2016: bit.ly/BigPicture2016

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If you like, you can also review the far-reaching horoscopes I wrote for you back in early 2015. Did my projections for last year come to pass? They're here: bit.ly/BigView2015
 

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My book PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA
is available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: bit.ly/PronoiaPowells

Below are excerpts.

I resolve not to automatically assume that negative feelings are more profound and authentic than positive ones, or that cynical opinions are smarter and more accurate than the optimistic kind.

And you?
 

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RADICAL CURIOSITY. Characterized by the following traits: an enthusiasm for the mystery embedded in the mundane; a preference for questions over answers; an aversion to stereotyping, generalizations, and jumping to conclusions; a belief that people are unsolvable puzzles; an inclination to be unafraid of both change and absence of change; a strong drive to avoid boredom; a lack of interest in possessing or dominating what you are curious about.

WILD DISCIPLINE. Possessing a talent for creating a kind of organization that's liberating; knowing how to introduce limitations into a situation in such a way that everyone involved is empowered to express his or her unique genius; having an ability to discern hidden order within a seemingly chaotic mess.

VISIONS OF THRILLING EXPLOITS. Experiencing an eruption of intuition that clearly reveals you will attempt a certain adventure in the future, as when you spy a particular mountain for the first time and know you'll climb it one day.

UNTWEAKABILITY. Having a composed, blame-free readiness to correct false impressions when your actions have been misunderstood and have led to awkward consequences.

More healthy states of mind: bit.ly/Zdyxc9
 

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"For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by M.D. Herter Norton

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"Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable, and noble kind of love."

- Delmore Schwartz
 

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"A writer -- and, I believe, generally all persons -- must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource," said author Jorge Luis Borges. "All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

I agree that this advice isn't useful just for writers, but for everyone.
 

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"The great lessons from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's back yard, and that travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred. To be looking everywhere for miracles is a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous."

- Abraham H. Maslow

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"The lesson that life constantly enforces is 'Look underfoot.' You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world."

- Naturalist John Burroughs

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"If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion."

- Lin-Chi, translated by Thomas Cleary

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"We want to be God in all the ways that are not the ways of God, in what we hope is indestructible or unmoving. But God is fragile, a bare smear of pollen, that scatter of yellow dust from the tree that tumbled over in a storm of grief and planted itself again."

- Deena Metzger, Prayers for a Thousand Years, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon
 

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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Congress Quietly Ends Federal Medical Marijuana Prohibition.
tinyurl.com/nh9eqsg

People Can Pay Their Parking Fines With Cans of Food for the Hungry.
tinyurl.com/qh6327s

Zimbabwe Bans Child Marriage.
tinyurl.com/hdbwurj

(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They are not advertisements, and I get no kickbacks.)

Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Truthrooster@gmail.com.
 

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
 Week beginning March 10

Copyright 2016 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com/horoscopes

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

"I wish I knew what I desire," wrote Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, born under the sign of Pisces. "I wish I knew! I wish I knew!" If he were still alive today, I would have very good news for him, as I do for all of you Pisceans reading this horoscope. The coming weeks will be one of the best times ever -- EVER! -- for figuring out what exactly it is you desire. Not just what your ego yearns for. Not just what your body longs for. I'm talking about the whole shebang. You now have the power to home in on and identify what your ego, your body, your heart, and your soul want more than anything else in this life.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):

"He in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace," wrote Leo Tolstoy in his novella The Death of Ivan Ilych. The weird thing is, Aries, that this seemingly crazy strategy might actually work for you in the coming days. The storms you pray for, the tempests you activate through the power of your longing, could work marvels. They might clear away the emotional congestion, zap the angst, and usher you into a period of dynamic peace. So I say: Dare to be gusty and blustery and turbulent.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

Quoting poet W. H. Auden, author Maura Kelly says there are two kinds of poets: argument-makers and beauty-makers. I think that's an interesting way to categorize all humans, not just poets. Which are you? Even if you usually tend to be more of an argument-maker, I urge you to be an intense beauty-maker in the next few weeks. And if you're already a pretty good beauty-maker, I challenge you to become, at least temporarily, a great beauty-maker. One more thing: As much as possible, until April 1, choose beauty-makers as your companions.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

To have any hope of becoming an expert in your chosen field, you've got to labor for at least 10,000 hours to develop the necessary skills -- the equivalent of 30 hours a week for six and a half years. But according to author William Deresiewicz, many young graphic designers no longer abide by that rule. They regard it as more essential to cultivate a network of connections than to perfect their artistic mastery. Getting 10,000 contacts is their priority, not working 10,000 hours. But I advise you not to use that approach in the coming months, Gemini. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will be better served by improving what you do rather than by increasing how many people you know.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

"I sit before flowers, hoping they will train me in the art of opening up," says poet Shane Koyczan. "I stand on mountain tops believing that avalanches will teach me to let go." I recommend his strategy to you in the coming weeks, Cancerian. Put yourself in the presence of natural forces that will inspire you to do what you need to do. Seek the companionship of people and animals whose wisdom and style you want to absorb. Be sufficiently humble to learn from the whole wide world through the art of imitation.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

The marathon is a long-distance footrace with an official length of over 26 miles. Adults who are physically fit and well-trained can finish the course in five hours. But I want to call your attention to a much longer running event: the Self-Transcendence 3100-Mile Race. It begins every June in Queens, a borough of New York, and lasts until August. Those who participate do 3,100 miles' worth of laps around a single city block, or about 100 laps per day. I think that this is an apt metaphor for the work you now have ahead of you. You must cover a lot of ground as you accomplish a big project, but without traveling far and wide. Your task is to be dogged and persistent as you do a little at a time, never risking exhaustion, always pacing yourself.
 

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LOVE YOUR LIFE!

How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and conditioned responses? Are you turning out to be the hero of your own life?

For assistance and inspiration, tune in to my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.

These forecasts are different in tone and format from the written horoscopes you read here in the newsletter. They're longer and more leisurely in tone. They tend to bring out more of the patient counselor in me, and have a bit less of the poet.

To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to RealAstrology.com.

Register and/or log in through the main page.

You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888.

The cost is $6 per sign on the Web (discounts available for bulk purchases), or $1.99 per minute by phone. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.

The Expanded Audio Horoscopes work on most smart phones and tablets.

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"Your expanded astrology thingees help me remember who I really am." -Gareth N., Toronto

"I never knew it was possible to get my butt kicked and my head patted at the same time -- until I listened to you, Rob." -Kristi P., Portland, OR

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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

In old Vietnamese folklore, croaking frogs were a negative symbol. They were thought to resemble dull teachers who go on and on with their boring and pointless lectures. But in many other cultures, frogs have been symbols of regeneration and resurrection due to the dramatic transformations they make from egg to tadpole to full-grown adult. In ancient India, choruses of croaks were a sign of winter's end, when spring rains arrived to fertilize the earth and bestow a promise of the growth to come. I suspect that the frog will be one of your emblems in the coming weeks, Virgo -- for all of the above reasons. Your task is to overcome the boring stories and messages so as to accomplish your lively transformations.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

"Your anger is a gift." So proclaims musician and activist Zack de la Rocha, singer in the band Rage Against the Machine. That statement is true for him on at least two levels. His fury about the systemic corruption that infects American politics has roused him to create many successful songs and enabled him to earn a very good living. I don't think anger is always a gift for all of us, however. Too often, especially when it's motivated by petty issues, it's a self-indulgent waste of energy that can literally make us sick. Having said that, I do suspect that your anger in the coming week will be more like de la Rocha's: productive, clarifying, healthy.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist," says novelist Nicole Krauss. In the coming weeks, I suspect you will provide vivid evidence of her declaration, Scorpio. You may generate an unprecedented number of novel emotions -- complex flutters and flows and gyrations that have never before been experienced by anyone in the history of civilization. I think it's important that you acknowledge and celebrate them as being unique -- that you refrain from comparing them to feelings you've had in the past or feelings that other people have had. To harvest their full blessing, treat them as marvelous mysteries.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

"Look at yourself then," advised author Ray Bradbury. "Consider everything you have fed yourself over the years. Was it a banquet or a starvation diet?" He wasn't talking about literal food. He was referring to the experiences you provide yourself with, to the people you bring into your life, to the sights and sounds and ideas you allow to pour into your precious imagination. Now would be an excellent time to take inventory of this essential question, Sagittarius. And if you find there is anything lacking in what you feed yourself, make changes!

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

According to a report in the journal Science, most of us devote half of our waking time to thinking about something besides the activity we're actually engaged in. We seem to love to ruminate about what used to be and what might have been and what could possibly be. Would you consider reducing that amount in the next 15 days, Capricorn? If you can manage to cut it down even a little, I bet you will accomplish small feats of magic that stabilize and invigorate your future. Not only that: You will feel stronger and smarter. You'll have more energy. You'll have an excellent chance to form an enduring habit of staying more focused on the here and now.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

One of the legal financial scams that shattered the world economy in 2008 was a product called a Collateralized Debt Obligation Squared. It was sold widely, even though noted economist Ha-Joon Chang says that potential buyers had to read a billion pages of documents if they hoped to understand it. In the coming weeks, I think it's crucial that you Aquarians avoid getting involved with stuff like that -- with anything or anyone requiring such vast amounts of homework. If it's too complex to evaluate accurately, stay uncommitted, at least for now.

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HOMEWORK:

What's the single thing you could do right now that would change your life for the better? Freewillastrology.com.

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Submissions sent to Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter or in response to "homework assignments" may be published in a variety of formats at Rob Brezsny's discretion, including but not limited to newsletters, books, the Free Will Astrology column, and Free Will Astrology website. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, style, and content. Requests for anonymity will be honored. We are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative material.

Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2016 Rob Brezsny

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